Voltron: Lance s army past AU
by MaybeLater7
Summary: Everyone has fears and everyone has to fight against them. The thing is that Lance s fears did not come from nowhere, but are actually what happened to him. The thing is that nobody knew or at least expected this kind of story. Basically ten times Lances life got messed up and one time everone finds out. (Warning: slightly OOC, summary-like writing, kinda-brainstorming)


Sometimes it happened to be the small things, which stung at his heart.  
He was, indeed, the blue Paladin of Voltron. He had been chosen for a reason. And yet, sometimes, there was this incredible feeling of worthlessness. He was the seventh wheel, the one everyone considered the least intelligent, the least mature, the least important part of the team.  
He was replaceable and even though they might did not realize it, the other Paladins never failed to remind him of this fact.  
Not on purpose, obviously. They never knew that every joke of his was a painful cry. He did not want them to worry, so when he felt hurt, he made a pun and left shortly after.  
He saw them rolling their eyes at his jokes.

He heard them talking about him at night, while he claimed to catch up on his ´beauty-sleep´. Though, he was walking around until late in the dark, when everyone else was asleep.  
Thinking about their annoyed groans when talking about what he had done wrong in the last battle, he usually fell asleep only two hours before Allura would wake them up for breakfast.

He would see his friends again, pretending they had never talked about him.

He would eat as usual, complaining about the food to prove them that everything was normal.

He would wait until they scold him directly, because he felt that it was better for them to complain directly to him, instead of whispering behind his back.

They would talk about him anyway. He would hear them again. The circle would repeat.

And it would hurt again, until he got used to it.

Lance was training. He was always training. Trying to get rid of the feelings inside his chest. He did become quit good at fighting the simulator. He was not bad to begin with.

Not that he was showing his skills to everyone else.

He had found an old training room just in the part of the castle, rarely anyone visited. It had been shut down for a while, since the gladiators were a bit too dangerous for anyone to fight alone in training. But Lance nailed it anyway. Hand to hand combat seemed like second nature.

He came here everyday, while the others wondered what he was doing all day.

Sometimes he would sneak out to the hangar where blue was at. He would talk to her, bond with her and every time he came, their connection grew stronger. When he felt down, he would just talk to Blue and show her his life. Earth, the ocean, his family, his whole past.

Blue would run simulations while bonding with him and Lance would fly complicated routines and maneuvers. He would consider what the others told him about his flying skills the day before and he would work on it. After all this was not one of his bad suits. Flying freely, without the threat of danger made him feel like he was home again. His worries gone and light, until he had to go back to seriousness of life.

Even if his flying skills were not nearly as good as Keith´s and he screwed up a lot, he was still improving. He never mentioned his secret training to the others though.

Other times he saw his friends feeling down, while being supposed to train together. They felt out of shape, out of energy and Lance knew they would not be scolded much by Allura, if it was him making the worst mistakes. And them laughing about his stupidity never failed to lighten the mood. That was why sometimes, he screwed up on purpose.

They were with Rolo and Nyma. Lance saw how beautiful Nyma was. But that was not what catched his attention. It were her eyes. Though she seemed totally relaxed and confident, her eyes showed him something else inside of her. An unspoken desire to get out of some kind of trouble, Lance did not know the cause of. But he knew that it probably had something to do with the Galran -empire. This was not the first time he had seen this kind of look. Lance smiled at her. Communicating through his own eyes as well, he tried to tell her that he noticed.

That he wanted to distract her. He pushed every reassuring emotion he had left into the one thought that he would not force her to do anything she did not want.

It was only about a split second that she reacted. Surprise slightly covering her features as she seemed to understand.

And of he went with his flirting. She confidently reacted to every flattering word he said.

As the others demanded he should not bring her to his lion, he wanted to explain the situation to her, but he saw the heartbroken look in her eyes and so he lead her somewhere else and told her to meet him later. He did not know that Nyma talked to Rolo, while he was gone to steal his own lion.

When they flew of, he did not look her into her eyes again. He was too focused on distracting her to notice the guilt in her features as she cuffed him on that tree and left with only a few words and Blue.

Needless to say that it stung to Lance.

Lance was still at the Garrison. He was at the office. Hearing, for the thousandth time, that he was too rebellious, that he was no good as a pilot,

but then Iverson announced he was promoted to fighter class, anyway. For a moment he was proud. Finally him staying up all night, studying hours for hours, secretly sneaking out to either train with the simulator or distracting Hunk from his fears of not making the finals had paid of.

Finally, he would be paid for all the lack of sleep he had invested.

But the bubble of happiness exploded only seconds after as Iverson started to make sure he knew why he was being promoted.

Only because Keith had flunked out. Lance´s smile disappeared. That guy again.

It was the time Lance before Lance got into the Garrison. Before he met Hunk and Pidge.

Lance was part of the army. He was their sniper, their best sharpshooter and confident in the combat-skills he improved everyday.

He also was part of the underwater missions. Swimming was the one talent he never had to learn. He swam when he was still a child. Constantly reaching for the waves and the water in front of him. He was fast, he was skilled and he could hold his breath for about five and a half minutes.

Though he was one of the youngest, Lance was one of the best fighters in his department. It would not take long until he would get a leading position, so he had thought.

But only one fight had changed everything.

It was not even a glorious fight. It had been in a small bar in some city Lance would forget the name of. Some bastards, teenagers none the less had been playing with a gun one of them had stolen.

Everything was fine, until one of them accidentally pulled the trigger, shooting onto non other than the barkeeper himself. Lance had heard the noise from outside.

The barkeeper had been shot in his stomach, causing the teenagers to panic and run away. Lance saw them rushing past him. And of course he had to follow them. Someone was already taking care of the old man in suit and someone else was calling the police, so Lance could leave without a worry.

On this day he first ran into Keith, who was just walking the road as he saw the violent looking Lance going on rampage, following the teenagers.

Keith must have noticed that Lance was armed, while the teenagers had left their gun behind, so of course the hotheaded guy tried to stop Lance.  
Long story short, Lance and Keith went into an argument, which turned into a small fight.

Somehow they got on the street and Lance, suddenly being aware of their position, suddenly pushed Keith to the side as a car with a distracted driver hit him frontal.

Lance would never catch the teenagers who had fled to their safe homes.

He would find out only month later, that Keith had hit his head on the boarding-stones that day and lost his memories of the incident.

And more importantly, Lance himself would be too injured and his reputation too damaged because of that single argument to return to the army.

Lance got a ticket to the Garrison for his efforts in his former fights though.

Lance knew what his father would say. A school was not nearly as graceful as serving their country, their land. Especially since he was not used to studying, especially because he knew he had to fight. When he got to the Garrison and saw Keith again, he brushed of any feelings of guilt and decided to rival the guy who thought he could destroy Lance´s life and continue on far ahead of him in everything they did.

That´s how Keith became his rival.

Lance was at the hospital, visiting his mother. She hugged him as always. Smiling at him. She did not recognize him.

Of course not. She never remembered a thing when he visited. He made sure to enjoy every single moment with her though. He was the one who would never forget. He always wrote down everything they said to each other, when he went back to the army.

He did not dare to forget. Not after everything they had been through. Not after she was the only family he still had left.

Lance´s family had never been the most beautiful to begin with. Of course they had lived near the ocean. Of course he had always had fun with them.

His mother, the most beautiful person he knew would race swim him when he was still a child, as well as his siblings. Lance was the fastest one though.

They lived with his nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, and grandmas together.

They had fun. They lived a lovely life. Until the day Lances family had to move away. He never found out why. He never knew exactly what had happened, but the connection between them had broken.

It was only Lance, his mother, his father, his older and younger sister as well as his younger brother now.

His mother still loved his father. But Lance´s father as well, broke shortly after that. He started training Lance and his brother. He started to slack of family and private issues and focused his feelings on recruiting his son to brave soldiers. His sisters learned how to defend themselves, but that was mostly it.

Lance´s father started drinking as well. A lot. Too much and he started shouting. He had violent issues, but he would leave home to turn his anger at something else, before he would hurt any of his beloved family. Lance´s mother was the only one able to calm him down.

Lance and his siblings never interfered. They knew they could not do anything, while their father lived with the guilt of breaking the contact to all the relatives they had.

So they stayed quiet, trying to understand.

Because sometimes their father would talk to them heart to heart. Proving them that nobody of their family understood how he felt. That he never wanted them to cut ties.

And Lance believed him. He wanted to, he needed to, though his father never explained why they were never able to reunion with their family.

Lance did everything to make his father proud. He trained hard, he became a soldier. He promised to do everything.

He was at the training camp as the message reached him.

His father and two of his siblings were dead. His mother and his older sister were in coma.

A train accident as they wanted to visit him.

His sister died, the moment Lance reached the hospital. His mother woke up two weeks after.

But she would never be the same. She had hurt her head pretty bad.

She suffered from Amnesia.

It was Lance´s fault. Her hugs were everything that reminded him of the old days.

In this moment he swore, he would never let anyone see he cared. He needed to prove them that his father was allowed to be proud of him.

He needed to show his mother that he would remember her, always.

Nobody was allowed to suffer because of him. He would do everything to make them smile.

He had to.

Every, but the blue Paladin were laying on the ground. Right in front of Zarkon who was glaring down at them. A small smile on his purple face.

Haggar had been taken down, but it was Zarkon who was the most powerful, especially since Haggar had enchanted his magic. And right now he showed the Paladins their biggest fears, though they managed to weaken him quite a lot. After all he was already unsteady on his knees, breathing hitching and wounds all over his body.

The room was filled with illusions.

The paladins were taken in by their biggest fears. They would see how their families were taken from them, they would see how every hope of saving earth was shattered.

Even Keith, who finally had found a track of his family, lost somewhere in space, was confronted with the vision of their life´s taken away. Everything they had, taken away by Zarkon himself.

Lance was the only one left to go inside. He had distracted a bunch of Galra- soldiers with blue earlier.

"Please, don´t come in here!", Keith send his so believed last message through his helmet to Lance, as said Paladin tried to find out what was happening in there.

"He´s right!", Pidge agreed, tears near as she watched Matt and her father cry in pain in front of her, as they were dying the most painful way, Pidge could imagine.

"He is turning our fears against us!"

Nobody of the others was answering as Zarkon still grinned at the sight of four suffering Paladins.

"This is what lays ahead of you! Let´s just wait for your last friend to come in until I destroy you all at once", he whispered, voice deep and threatening.

"Lance, do not go in there! It appears, Zarkon is using some kind of magic which causes people to live through their worst fears!

We both know, you are the most affected by your homesickness! You have the largest family to return to! You should not sacrifice yourself! You would turn just as motionless as your fellow paladins!", Coran warned, but who was Lance to listen to him.

"They are my family, Coran!"

And so Lance told Blue to take care of the Galras herself and excited through her big mouth.

He did not know what to expect, as he entered the Galra- headquarters. He ran past the unconscious or dead Galra- soldiers and brushed through doors, Pidge obviously had opened.

He ran past the motionless corpse of Haggar and finally he reached the door, which lead to his friends.

At the sudden opening of the doors, he could not have been more shocked. His friends almost looked dead. Certain body parts in unnatural angles, blood splattered on their armor, he bitterly hoped was not theirs.

They were moving, yes, but they were only staring at the visions of People dying. Some of them people Lance recognized.

"Lance, leave!", he heard a whimper. It was Hunk who did not even look at the real Lance, but a Lance in his vision, dying by being sliced open by Zarkon himself.

The others seemed to focus on said illusion as well now, crying in pain, Lance needed to leave.

Only Zarkon noticed the real blue Paladin.

And caught the shocked guy by surprise as he attacked him instantly, magic causing Lance to wince in pain as he felt himself being lifted up and crashed to the next wall.

Finally the attention was on the real Lance. Illusions not longer needed, everything was clearly visible to Lance´s friends.

Shocked to see him alive again, but also expecting to only see another illusion, they stared at him in shock.

But Lance somehow managed to release himself from Zarkons magic and dodged another upcoming attack.

Anger was rising in his mind, in his heart and most of all, in his actions. Finally he used the skills he had sharpened as a teenager, as a soldier and at the training deck on the castle.

Usually he avoided using his skills as much as possible, but Zarkon was the last boss. This was his final battle and the life´s of his family was at stake. Plus, he had an advantage, since Zarkon was already beat up.

So he fought, causing the others to be convinced it was only an odd illusion. An illusion, in which Lance might even stood a chance against the enemy.

Lance dodged Zarkons wide ranged attacks, slowly getting used to his movements. He was approaching him and his own weapon just barely missing Zarkon.

He had to win, he just had to. But then, the illusions were back. Some small of them, hunting Shiro. They were Galra soldiers, forcing him to relive the pain of loosing his arm.

It was only a moment of distraction, but Zarkon used it to cast his magic on Lance and finally forcing him to his knees.

"You were a fool to think, you could fight me all on your own!", Zarkon cursed, taking Lance´s Bayard away and tossing it to the other side of the room.

"Your friends saw you die already. They saw their close ones being killed by me. It would only be fair to show you your own fears as well!"

And suddenly the room was filled with Lance´s illusions.

His life openly shown to everyone of his friends and obviously himself. Zarkon was grinning as Lance experienced yet again how his life was taken away.

And for a moment he was drowning in it. He saw his family rejecting him, dying because of him, only because they wanted to visit him, he saw his fellow soldiers in danger, he felt everything he had experienced through the Garrison, his family and through Voltron.

"Don´t worry, your friends don´t just see what you´re afraid of, they feel it just as well.", Zarkon laughed irrationally, while coughing at the same time.

It was this sentence that caused Lance to look up.

His friends were gaping at the scenarios in front of them and Lance could see the pain on their faces and he knew there was only one fear left, only one thing Zarkon had yet to reveal.

But he also knew, this time would not be an illusion.

So he did the only sane thing he could. He stood up, taking Zarkon by surprise as he reached for Keith Bayard, which was lying somewhere near him, abandoned by it´s owner.

It immediately shifted sword size as Lance swung it at his enemy as if he knew exactly what he was doing. Which, indeed, he did.

It took everyone about five seconds to understand what just had happened. Even Zarkon, sliced up by the sword, just stared at him. The light in his eyes barely a whisper before it finally faded as their big enemy stumbled … and fell.

Especially Lance had not expected this. He had expected Zarkon to defend himself through his magic or at least step to the side, but the Galra had been too sure of himself, too convinced that Lance´s illusions would frighten him enough to kill him without any resistance.

It was over. The reality just sunk in. Keith, Hunk, Shiro and Pidge tried to stand up, but they could only stare at their friend from the floor.

"Lance, was this real, were those … your memories?!", Pidge asked, shocked as realization hit her. Hunk´s eyes were swelling with tears.

Lance hesitated, but nodded.

"You have been in the army?!", Keith asked, shocked to the news that Lance McClain, the guy who never trained, could actually fight.

"Well, apparently, yeah.", Lance replied, still trying to process what had happened.

"unbelievable", even Shiro stated.

After this last fight the universe discovered peace, for the first time in ten thousand years.

As Shiro explained to Allura and Coran how everything went down, both of them were frozen in place, not expecting Lance to be the one to get the final blow.

Lance never saw their expressions. He had someone to meet. So he left without a word, but a note that he´d come back as soon as he could. Nobody would have stopped him anyway.

As he finally got back to earth he visited the hospital.

Everything was quiet as he slowly opened the room filled in light. A bright smile was meeting gaze.

"Hey there.", she said and her ocean blue eyes sparkled at the sight of him. "I never get visits. Who are you again?!"

Lance face drifted to a saddened smile. "It does not matter who I am. … ", he suddenly stopped. "You are all that matters."


End file.
